Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
I wonder if everyone’s life is as filled with mystery and suspense as mine is. Or maybe I just make molehills into mountains in print, so things that other people consider minor details in life get put under a magnifying glass where I’m concerned.
But there’s something strange and exciting going on at my house. It goes like this: I have a horrible watchdog. Her name is Alice, and she’s a neurotic rescue dog. She has the most piercing bark you’ve ever heard, but she’s quite maladroit at determining when to use it. You might say she’s a broken watchdog in that she’s only right twice a day.
My car has been broken into twice in the last few years. Not a peep. But if that mail delivery person shows up six times a week, she goes crazy six times a week. She freaks on any jogger or walker who passes by the house.
And now to the mystery. Something is creeping in Alice’s dog door late at night and eating her food. Alice goes apoplectic, but only on the visitor’s exit—as evidenced by the emptiness of her bowl. It happens almost every night. I’m thinking it might be a raccoon, but I can’t really say. There are always splashes of water near the bowl, but no footprints. Maybe it’s a possum or something even more exotic, a humanoid creature from a Dungeons & Dragons soiree that somehow broke through the interdimensional barriers.
I’m kind of worried about Prometheus the cat because I know he’ll take on all comers. In fact, I get a little concerned about what I’m going to find under my bed when I see one of those “lost dog” posters on the lightposts in the neighborhood.
Now I have to figure out how to capture this creature, but the question is, how do I catch it without catching Alice or Prometheus?